


Routine Folly

by V_mum



Series: Kaayras Adaar [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Battle Injuries, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor canon divergence, battle tactics, between cannon occurrences, more like, not really - Freeform, not too gorey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_mum/pseuds/V_mum
Summary: Blackwall cannot rush to their aid, he must fight the rest to keep them at bay.He had to turn away.He knows that.But he saw it.He saw the moment Adaar was doomed to go down.
Relationships: (Primarily Platonic Relationships), Inquisitor & Advisors (Dragon Age), Inquisitor & Companions (Dragon Age)
Series: Kaayras Adaar [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1178300
Kudos: 15





	Routine Folly

Blackwall watches, through the pouring rain, as the Inquisition’s flag is hoisted into the air.

Vivienne, standing in for group mage, keeps to the wall not far on his left, where there's a bit of rain shelter from some slightly dilapidated roof. It doesn't do her much good- she’s soaked as a sewage rat already. She’d have his head for the comparison.

Cole is hovering at the inquisitor’s side, blood smudged and still dripping over his lips from his nose. A large dark stain is creeping down a gash in the sleeve on his left arm. Cole's watching, like they all are, as the flag shakes in the horrible wind, and lightning threatens to strike the very pole it flies from. He barely seems aware of his own injuries, possibly submerged in the injuries the rest of the party feels, on top of his own.

Cole, Vivienne, and Blackwall watch the flag reach it's height at the peak of the pole.

Kaayras Adaar bleeds, heavily, in the nonsilence of battering rain, and ties off the rope that holds it high. 

They’ve already sent for a crestwood villager to take word to the Inquisition camp; The Keep Is The Inquisition's, now. A battle has been won.

Blackwall doesn't much like the look of the flag. Black, an ominous eye, a bright red dagger embroider stitched into the fabric. It's not much a flag for the Good Guys. He hopes, after all, he's with  _ the Good Guys _ like he means to be. You can never be too sure, but he thinks he is. He doesn't like the flag, though.

One would think the inquisition would want no red symbolism, given their enemy pumps its soldiers full of red and lyrium. Why not Green? With the “Mark” and all. Or Yellow, or White, maybe.

No matter- its a black and red flag, raised against a faint glow of the moon through thick rain clouds.

They’re the good guys- Blackwall thinks- and they won. 

Soon it will be busy. There will be bustle as scouts inspect every crack for weakness in the holding walls. Grunts beginning to pitch tents, setting up catches, food set out to salt. check points for traders, and planning generals, and spies on outpost.

For now, there's a quiet in a storm. The rain is loud but smothers everything else- ragged breathing, dripping blood, echoes of battle cries- into the silence.

The heavy patterns of blood dripping off blades, dripping from a gash down Blackwall’s arm, small patterns off the end of Lady Vivienne’s dress, blood from the corner of Cole’s mouth and some of his thin fingers and wrapped palms. Little red jobs, joining the rain in endlessly cascading to the stone floor. There's something deep and dark oozing up the Inquisitor’s left side, staining the thick blue clothes and sticking to the leathers.

It's deceptive, how he's the only one not dripping blood onto the wet stone. But the patch is growing darker. His breathing more uneven. 

The adrenaline fading.

No one bothers to address any wounds, yet. Not even look at them, check they aren't lethal. 

It hasn't quite escaped everyone's thoughts, yet. 

They cannot think of anything but the battle.

It had been routine, until it hadn't been, so quickly. So tangled and busy. They’d been fighting corpses for nights- perhaps the dirty tricks and the tactics of a well-led group of highway men had gotten them off guard, too used to mindless swinging swords of the undead. Perhaps they were just tired, weighed down by the rain and the long journey. Hell, even distracted by the prospect of the dragon in the distance they had spotted not long ago. Blackwall cannot be sure what had them unprepared, but one moment it was a fight, and the next- it was too much, and they were on their toes and swallowed. 

Blackwall had slashed a man down with a heavy sword swipe just as Adar carved a dagger into another's throat after Cole swiped out the bastard's feet. 

That was the last moment Blackwall remembers it felt like Routine. The last thought he had in that moment, jarring him from the routine, was that if Cole, the support, was with Adaar, who was watching Vivienne's back?

he lost sight of both rouges then, and didnt have a chance to check on her. The thought was fleeting. His part of routine, which he tried to return to, was to be the focus. Brazen, a target, attract attention. 

Cole hadn't been watching the mage position, he had been distracted supporting Adaar. That was his folly. 

Blackwall's, then, was that he had been distracted long enough to watch them. 

Five men had taken that opportunity to charge the long distance fighter. He only managed to get two's attention, to turn and draw on him instead, with a battle cry. despite how hard he strained. 

They'd gotten past him. And that was his fault. The routine was to let her- and the support- handle it. To make sure no one else cut through.

But routine was already out. 3 was not a routine slip up. He hollard a warning, and it was all he could do as he charged forward to take the two of five.

Vivienne, under 3 blades of the highwaymen guards. Cole pops out of nowhere, now that hes helped Adaar where needed, and slices one to ribbons. But his sleeping powder misfires- maybe the rain- maybe the wind- maybe poor aim- but the point is- it misses the other two. Cole has attention on the one he didnt try to put to sleep, on taking him down as quick as possible. The other two dangerous very much awake men continue their assault all at once, close in tight quarters, bad for any mage, too many for any stealth based rogue. 

Cole, while surprised to be dodging attacks he thought he'd put to bed, manages to recover in ample time. Vivienne receives a shove that has her spitting, but firmly puts her behind Cole, who is much more prepared with close combat, even succeeds in disarming one of his combatants for just a moment. the abandoned sword is retrieved, however, in the split seconds Cole tries to recover his footing with the second assailant.

The two of them, to say the least, are both focused on the defensive. Vivienne is too busy slamming a barrier down on them both for protection, and Cole is too busy defending the mage while she attempts to pull together the magic. 

The spirit lad takes a full fist to the face when he's too busy digging a dagger into the sword-bearing hand of one of the men, successfully saving Vivienne mid-casting from a horrible slice. Cole stumbles a bit from the strike, driven tighter and closer to Vivienne and giving up precious defendable space, but she does not faulter- them closer together will only make her barrier stronger when she finishes it. 

She focuses all the harder, and Cole steels after reeling from the blow, still two daggers in hand and determined to help and protect. 

They're both too busy, wrapped in their throng. Too busy, and miss the Leader of the bandits coming upon them.

Blackwall gave some sort of yell for them to take cover, he remembers. Or maybe it was a yell of challenge, trying to draw the Leader’s attention or even stall him merely a moment to glance away from his target victims; most of his memory fades out in a blur of adrenaline, and details vanish beyond the feeling of straining his throat with a gutteral, commanding shout. 

The thing he remembers best of each moment following were... only a glimpse each. 

Like the shadow of a man, the massive inquisitor, is suddenly there; daggers brandished, suddenly between friends and foe’s swinging hammer.

And then blackwall has to look away, because every other enemy is suddenly his responsibility. He hears more than sees most of what follows, when he has to put his attention back to his own battles.

Block- clatter of steel- miss- grinding stone on stone-  _ thud _ and  _ crack  _ all mixed in to one-

Blackwall chances a glance over again at some point, and  _ remembers  _ the adrenaline fueled glimpse of the scene. A crater in brick- the sound had to have been that war hammer to the ground, he thinks in that split second- 

Cole’d had a knife dug deep- too deep, it was stuck, Blackwall snapshot thinks, it had to be- in one of the highwaymen’s shoulders and the other speared through the neck by the highway man’s own sword, dagger in arm putting it under the spirit boy's control. 

An expression like a rabid dog burned into blackwall’s mind in only a second, sprayed with a spatter of blood from that deep shoulder stab, protective and vicious-

Lit up so bright with brilliant blue-white light, cast barriers and the shimmer of ice crystals in the air- ice crusted the feet of the second highwaymen opponent- Vivienne enchanting with cursing breaths, and her staff glowing harsh light on her sharp silhouette-

There’s a dagger (big, too big a blade to be Cole's, Adaar's dagger) stuck in the leader’s swing arm- the hammer is raised again despite the injury- Adaar is brandishing the other one and by god, is he big even next to a brute with a hammer, and theres no room for him in that tight battle wedged between friend and foe- 

Just a  _ glimpse _ and he feels a strike of confidence that they can take it and he  _ has  _ to focus on his own battle, anyway, despite the overwhelming gut feeling he has that something has gone wrong. He has to finish and get there to help so he  _ pushes _ forward against another opponent.

Another clatter- a strike of thunder loud in the distance- clattering, thunk, thud-

Chances another glance- not nearly enough time to take in much detail-

Adaar gets in a hard shove on his large opponent- 

takes a step back- to garner more fight space, wise-

_ Trips _ over the end of Vivienne’s staff, behind his heel- 

A noise of alarm from Cole that's drowned by that same adrenaline in Blackwall's ears muting every other sound. 

But Blackwall isn't looking anymore by the time the sound reaches the air, because he's blocking a swing of a sword- 

Blackwall remembers that part best- the rest was a distracted blur, fighting his own opponent, several feet away. Rushing to take the one Kaayras had abandoned fighting to protect their companions instead, because letting yet another enemy encroach on that tangled close combat fight is a death sentence. Blackwall cannot rush to their aid, he must fight the rest to keep them at bay. 

_ He had to turn away _ .

He knows that. 

_ But he saw it.  _

He saw the moment Adaar was doomed to go down. 

He saw the moment it went wrong, and was too busy to see the result.

He remembers this part best, even if he’d been looking for only a single second. Blackwall remembers the split second of Addar reeling back after the shove, the heel he slides back to counter his huge center of balance meets the edge of her staff. Even as he arches over Vivienne, prepared to block the incoming huge force of the hammer that's already raised above them again, to shield her from the blow with his sheer height.

He knows- from so many spars against him- Adaar's whole weight is  _ on that foot,  _ to prepare for that blow-

And he  _ saw that foot hit the staff. _

The best thing he remembers in the whole of that fight was the glimpse of heel twisting, and knowing, knowing with a cringe so sharp as his own sword,  _ shit. _

Just before swinging his own blade down on the dazed highwayman Kaayras abandoned (still recovering from the sleep powder Kaayrus had cast him with to get away), he sees Adaar  _ Trip _ in the corner of his eye- dread in his chest- but he can't look- he has yet another enemy of his own to fight, immediately after he glimpses it.

He can't  _ look _ but  _ god  _ does he know what's going to come, and knows what  _ every _ sound is as it does.

A massive body slams the ground with no grace, a loud thud drowned in the wet sound of a puddle splash and of more distant thunder reaching their ears.  _ Shit _ , he thinks again, dread realized as the dull sound reaches him.

One loud, sick crunch- one he hears  _ far  _ too clearly. 

The hammer on ribs, Blackwall knows now, more percisely. He wishes that sound, too, had been drowned out by the sound of thunder, or the adrenaline, or a battle cry, or something- anything. It's sickening, still, and turns his stomach over and over even in the stillness after the battle, echoing in his ears.

Rogue fighters are fragile. They don't take well to heavy hits, no  _ real  _ armor to speak of. Kaayras is a hefty, massive Qunari man, but- he still follows that rule. Maybe he can lift far more than Sera or Cole, but face to face with hard hitting brutes- they must stay distant, or slip away quickly.

Addar shouldn’t have been in that tangle. It shouldn’t have gotten so bad in the first place, to need him there. They were supposed to protect the Herald. 

That was  _ everyone’s  _ folley. Addar paid a nasty toll for it.

They’re lucky it hadn't been a crushed skull. It’s the kind of situation that kills a man in one hit. 

Cole urges the Qunari man to sit down, in the present. Quietly. Only says it once.

Kaayras stares up at the flag, watching it whip violently, still on his feet, perhaps not even hearing him. 

Blackwall wonders if the man is in shock from the injury. Hears, again, the sick crunch in his ears and feels his fingers curl inward in response, almost disgusted. 

Vivienne stays entirely silent- perhaps in respect to her own pride. Assistance by Cole was enough to sneer at, for her- needing yet another rescue, too much, her rescuer crushed after tripping over her, much too much.

Perhaps that was  _ her _ folly. To her credit, that was very much  _ after  _ routine had dissolved.

He wonders if they are  _ all _ in shock, at the moment. After all, Blackwall knows he should coax the inquisitor into sitting, as well. At the very least, begin patching his own leg. But he's not saying much of anything at all, not doing anything but sitting, hunched in the rain, even after he’s regained his breath. 

He takes a look down at his leg- the injury is nothing. He could run on it, if he wanted to. He's more like a wet, tired dog than an injured soldier. He doesn't feel like he’s in shock. Just- that nothing can be done, for now. There’s nothing to do. It’s just stillness.

There's a wet thud noise again, an aching familiarity. He hears another echo of the crunch as though he's back to the first time he heard that hulking body hit the floor while he was looking away. It's not as hard a thud as he remembers, no blunted, violent force behind it. 

But, when Blackwell looks up again, the Inquisitor is once more on the hard ground anyway, downed like a drop of rain, fallen from the sky among its kin. 

Just like when Blackwall had slain his last opponent, and turned, and watched Cole panicked and crouched on all fours like a feral dog over the huge body on the ground. Blocking what was certainly a death blow from one of the other highwaymen, using his bare arm. Cole’s second and final blade had been buried in the throat of the massive leader, dead on the ground. 

But not before Addar had been crushed with a dead hit of a massive hammer. Something which without a doubt would have killed a smaller man. 

Cole has crouched at the man’s side once again, and that's too familiar. Even if it's less feral, less bloody a moment, it's too familiar to finally turning to see the aftermath of the catastrophe. To chalked full of the panic of “ _ is he dead?”  _ and not sure where the hammer had crushed the huge man. If he was dead, or would lose a limb from a mulched appendage bone.

Blackwall jerks to his aching feet, sliding bloody blade into sheath. Vivienne powers forward, stiff with a mockery of her own poise. If he is a wet dog- she is a wet cat. She’d prefer it to wet rat, he thinks. She’d say Cole was the wet rat among them, if she were up to a bit of back and fourth. Right not, he doubts she's in the mood. He isn't, either.

“I'm fine.” Kaayras wheezes, wet and raspy. It should be a  _ relief  _ to finally hear the man speak, but it isnt. There's a sickening dampness to his voice, much like that disgusting crunching sound. Blood on the lungs- sounds like someone who’s swallowed a lot of water before swimming back ashore, half drowned.

There’s no telling how much damage has been done, internally, yet. But there's something odd about the shape of Addars just as he lays there, struggling to breathe. The heavy blood stain is dark and wide. There’s a little notch, poking out. Blackwall gets the nasty thought that maybe it's a Rib Bone, poking out of the skin, that has caused the bleeding puncture.

He doesn't want to think about it.

Instead, Blackwall sits heavily and none too gently at Kaayras’ side. With one hand on the Inquisitor’s shoulder, he drags him to sit up straight. “Deep breaths.” Blackwall orders, sitting with his back to Adaar’s, to keep him sitting upright, but with something to lean against, at least.

Vivienne has taken a knee at their side- Kaayras raises a hand to wave her off, and Blackwall grunts, “Let lady Vivienne help you before you drown in your own blood. It’ll be some time before we get more healing potions or a professional medic up here.”

Blackwall feels the back of Adaar’s horned head lean back against him, slumped against the warrior’s back. Adaar’s huge shoulders roll out to relax and allow Vivienne’s hands near, only to tense again under the contact of magic fingers.

Cole sits against the flagpole on their opposite side, crossing his legs, small exhale of relief falling between the rains. Perhaps feeling the relief of magic pain relief second hand.

After a passage of time that can only be measured in crackles of thunder- 16- the dim glow and hum of magic quiets, and the back and shoulders rested against Blackwall soften again, signalling Vivienne has stopped, or finished for now at least.

Kaayras, immediately, shifts and makes to raise to his feet. 

“Sit down.” Vivienne snips, almost cold, but not quite. “You're not going out to that dam like this, dear.”

“I-”

“Don't talk back to a lady.” Blackwall elbows Adaar's side- good side- from behind him. “And don't be in such a rush to join the corpses. We’ve enough of them to kill.”

“Listen to the unwashed man, my darling. As horrible as it must be, pressed against him like that, you must remain here until the Inquisition arrives. Let that battered lung rest, though i'm sure the stench is abhorrent on a weak lung.”

“If you don't enjoy a sweaty man, you’ve a horrible sex life.” Kaayras coughs once, interrupting his own joke in the middle, but forces it out despite the interruption. 

The joke is a good sign against shock, at least, even if Blackwall has absolutely no way to respond to that.

“I assure you, my dear. Mine is sated far better with men who know proper bathing.” Blackwall finds it almost incredulous that  _ this  _ kind of chatter can seem to put lady Vivienne at ease.

Adaar makes a light hum that sounds wet and rumbly still, “Well, you know, I clean up very well, myself.” The Inquisitor’s shoulders shake behind him, trembling with laughter. He can almost hear the wink in the Qunari’s voice.

“That you do, darling.” She gives Kaayras a consoling pat on the shoulder, and just barely in his own peripheral, Blackwall sees a content smile bloom over the Inquisitor’s expression in place of a toothy, flirtatious grin. Blackwall can  _ almost _ interpret the interaction as… warm. Fond.

“ _ So nice to find someone who understands the joke _ . Friendly, friendly, just to get a smile.  _ Don't touch me _ , only a joke in low light, i could  _ crush _ you, crush you, but i can't, bend under fingers into soft- sanctum turned prison. Raw, dutiful, disciplined,  _ docile,  _ bend, bend, break, snap. A smile means pleased, did the job well.”

A marveling performance from Cole, offhandedly, absently tracing the Inquisitor with his gaze, fidgeting with sleeves, and dripping water from the drooping edges of his hat. One of the more uncomfortable things he’s overheard from Cole, but that seems to be the case with all of them.

Vivienne removes her hand from Adaar’s shoulder, as the Qunari man’s smile falls to the tune of Cole’s words, stolen straight from his own head.

“Serves you right for keeping it, dear.” Vivienne produces, with less bite than usual. She sits back, on the ground, already properly soaked, and quite tired.

Blackwall feels Adaar shift and lean off of the support of the warrior’s back. Blackwall turns toward the group, armor clinking, and sees Kaayras sits upright on his own now, if labored, and faces toward the spirit kid. “Cole, we’ve-”

“Talked about it, yes.” Cole dips his head. “I’m sorry. The hurts just come so fast.”

Kaayras shrugs. “Asking a person to go against their nature, what different can I expect? Thank you anyway, Cole, don't worry. Just- keep trying.”

“You address it so generously, my dear, but you are right. It can't help its  _ nature _ , it's just a demon.”

“I like jokes.” Addar cuts, smoothly, ignoring her entirely. Randomly, with no inclination as to what that's supposed to mean. A change in topic, perhaps, to interrupt unpleasant conversation.

“Knock knock.” Cole perks up almost immediately, much to everyone’s surprise.

“...who’s there?” Blackwall finds himself asking, without thinking.

Cole tilts his head. “It's me, Cole.”

One crack of thunder, to call silence.

Kaayras Adaar, himself, erupts into flustered, borderline hysterical laughter that ends up forcing the man into choked, hacking and coughs.

Vivienne, scoffing low, takes back to magic induced healing while Blackwall- who  _ maybe _ chuckled once, he’ll admit- forces him to rest against each other's backs again. 

Cole smiles small, and proclaims “Varric said my jokes were not ready. I can't wait to show him, I'm funny after all.”

The Keep’s first scouts to fill it’s walls arrive less than 30 minutes later.

Adaar’s first order of business when they do is, of course, an order to get Cole and Blackwall’s injuries bandaged. 

Vivienne promptly sits him back down on his ass, hushes him, and directs the medics among the scouts to see the Inquisitor first while taking three healing potions, one for each of them, while they wait their turns.

**Author's Note:**

> i have finally completed all of the companion and advisor's first chapters!
> 
> Up next will probably be Josephine's and THAT contains a somewhat important point in Addar's history that will affect all the future chapters. up till now, it's been fairly episodical.


End file.
